The only categorizing I saw in the Council subforum posts refer to y'all as "Left Libertarian", with which I was unfamiliar until Googling it this morning. I can see a merger being possible. Do you guys subscribe to the "libertarian socialism" school, Steiner–Vallentyne, etc.?

Libertarian Socialism is about the same as I was aiming with the Council. Since human rights could be better applied in Taijitu we ought to define them, better than what I posted because some are hard to translate into our "game".

DemocracyDemocracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally—either directly or indirectly through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, religious, cultural, ethnic and racial equality, justice, and liberty.

Direct democracywikiDirect democracy (also known as pure democracy) is a form of democracy in which people decide (e.g. vote on, form consensus on) policy initiatives directly, as opposed to a representative democracy in which people vote for representatives who then decide policy initiatives. Depending on the particular system in use, it might entail passing executive decisions, the use of sortition, making laws, directly electing or dismissing officials and conducting trials. Two leading forms of direct democracy are participatory democracy and deliberative democracy.

Participatory democracywikiParticipatory democracy is a process emphasizing the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems. Etymological roots of democracy (Greek demos and kratos) imply that the people are in power and thus that all democracies are participatory. However, participatory democracy tends to advocate more involved forms of citizen participation and greater political representation than traditional representative democracy.

Open-source governancewikiAdvocates the application of the philosophies of the open source and open content movements to democratic principles in order to enable any interested citizen to add to the creation of policy, as with a wiki document. Legislation is democratically opened to the general citizenry, employing their collective wisdom to benefit the decision-making process and improve democracy.

CouncilA council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county level, but most legislative bodies at the state or national level are not considered councils. At such levels, there may be no separate executive branch, and the council may effectively represent the entire government.

Taijitu Citizen Human rights

Life - Right of every person to his or her life with access to the forums and region, a duty to refrain from unlawful banning or any other kind of loss of access to the forums or region (loss of life), a duty to investigate suspicious loss of life and, in certain circumstances, a positive duty to prevent foreseeable loss of life.

Liberty and Security - the right to liberty, subject only to lawful prosecution or administrative action under a lawful constitution and a set of rules, such as prosecution on reasonable suspicion of a crime or administrative action in fulfillment of a sentence. The right to be informed, in understandable manner, of the reasons for the prosecution and any charge they face, the right of prompt access to judicial proceedings to determine the legality of the prosecution or administrative action, to trial within a reasonable time or release pending trial, and the right to access full citizenship in the case of prosecution or administrative action in violation of this article.

Fair trial - The right to a fair trial, including the right to a public hearing before an independent and impartial tribunal within reasonable time, the presumption of innocence, and citizenship rights for those charged with a criminal offense, adequate time and accessible forum section to prepare their defense, access to legal representation, right to examine witnesses against them or have them examined, right to the free assistance from additional judicial bodies if necessary

No punishment without law - (Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine praevia lege poenali) prohibits the retroactive criminalization of acts and omissions. No person may be punished for an act that was not a criminal offense at the time of its commission.

Privacy - The right to respect for one's private and social life, his chats and his private correspondence in any platform, subject to certain restrictions that are in accordance with law.

Conscience and Religion - The right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This includes the freedom to change a religion or belief, and to manifest a religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance, subject to certain restrictions that are in accordance with law and necessary in a democratic society.

Expression - The right to freedom of expression, subject to certain restrictions that are in accordance with law and necessary in a democratic society, includes the freedom to hold opinions, and to receive and impart information and ideas.

Association - The right to freedom of assembly and association, including the right to form unions and parties.

Discrimination - Prohibits discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, color, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status, also in any legal right, even when that legal right is not protected under this charter, so long it is an established lawful article inherent to Taijitu.

Aliens - People that are not citizens of Taijitu may also be protected by these rights, excluding the limitations of membership under the Constitution of Taijitu.

Abuse of rights - no one may use their rights to seek the abolition or limitation of rights guaranteed within this charter.

SolidaritySolidarity is the combination of efforts sensitive to each person's struggle, interests, objectives, standards, and sympathies. Solidarity binding the people together as one, is necessary to the sustainable development of Taijituan society.

Taiji Left LibertarianismPraxis of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic society without the appropriation of any sort of power. We are opposed to coercive forms of social organization, society based on freedom and equality can be achieved through abolishing authoritarian offices that control certain parts of government and subordinate the majority to an owning class or political and autocratic elite. Taijituan Left Libertarianism also constitutes a tendency of thought that promotes the identification, criticism, and practical dismantling of illegitimate authority in all aspects of life. Regarding the set of rules and laws we promote Ad Hoc Praxis, in which legislature, policies, representation and work is seen as questions that can only be resolved in practice through experimentation. "From each according to ability, to each according to need" is the base guide for a society where needs are guided by rational and lawful standards.

I propose (and will subscribe when complete)This Council and it's membership in freedom of association under participist principles and for the tenants described above.To improve and define Human rights as objectified legal rights. The constitutional rights are not enough, they do not grant the Right of Association or Assembly. Defend a Participative and Direct Democracy Reform of the Constition by:- Widening of the legislative branch to constitute a Participatory democracy and it's definition under international understanding as head of state/region;- Empowering the legislative branch to procure mandates to execute legislation, granting thy all executive powers under certain lawful limitations;- Setting that The Office of the Delegate is the elected representative spokesperson of the legislative branch thus the region of Taijitu, setting also the adequate processes and limitations such office implies.

Aiming for libertarian socialism, okay, gotcha. I'd read everything in your subforum so I've seen the bit you quoted, but it contains no references to collective or individual property rights. Though not everything translates into the game directly, I am nonetheless interested to see how our philosophies overlap in that area (or fail to do so).

Participatory democracy under libertarian socialism or a similar version of anarcho-syndicalism allows private property and liberties/rights/privileges and to be fairly regulated by a "state", similar to the citizenship system we have in place, while any means of production, which we could agree in the game just translates to government and it's offices, are considered collective and ruled over by necessity and participatory(participative) people, almost exclusively necessity. Very Ad Hoc approach sometimes have negative impact in long-term but it translates very well to the game, (SD bashing time) we already embrace several parts of this philosophy by allowing unlawful ruling over reform and restructure of our region.

What would you consider necessary to discuss in detail about the matter of property? How do you think it translates to the game?

The "Council" is supposed to be a participatory body, since it was not at the time embraced as part of the government, had to be constituted as a political association/party. It's based on the original concept of civilian Soviets in opposition to the monarchic rule: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_%28council%29, which could, at the time it was created, become a Petrograd Council dual to the, at that time (again), upcoming monarchy. Even without the monarchist uprising the council still makes sense as a political association. There was an effort, up to the reform, to transform the Senate into this kind of participatory council, but since the reform has created an upper house now called Senate, this is a step backwards the idea of a participatory council being the main legislative body (and government). All-in-all, the idea of a council ruling taijitu with participative democracy is still very possible, eliminating the upper house and negating some of the executive branch's powers, which would then be attributed, by necessity, through the council.

Though not everything translates into the game directly, I am nonetheless interested to see how our philosophies overlap in that area (or fail to do so).

* emphasis added

Basically I'm curious to know what you (and other Council members) think about these philosophies as they pertain to reality. Property use and ownership is a central issue for socialists of all stripes, so it makes sense in my mind to know if our views are compatible. I think it's nice to have a collective who feel similarly about such important things, whether or not they all relate to the game as it currently stands. Especially given that they may end up bleeding into the game in RP or something.

Left Bloc is a nice idea for our "merger" btw, it's a party that includes several political associations, some communist, some socialist, all different. Nowadays it has 4 main groups and several minor groups, some parallel to political associations, ex-associations or platforms: Socialist (Revolutionary Socialist Party - trotkist); Alternative Left (Democratic Popular Union - "lenninist" communist); Anti-Capitalist (remnants of division in the Revolutionary Socialist Party); unaligned Motion B (ex-communist party or other communist parties that didn't integrate Left Bloc); unaligned Democratic Popular Union political association members; etc.

If you're wondering where I fit in, I don't, my only association is the party, but I tend to go with the Anti-Capitalists.